His omnitool was almost dead. He needed to charge the damn thing, probably reroute some wires – it had sparked the last few times he had used it. The device, like him, was running out of juice. Squeeze. His shoulders eased as he shifted his frame just slightly, his faithful lady pressed into the bend of his shoulder as he lined up, he moved his scope over the bridge. Squeeze. Another slow sweep of his scope. Squeeze. Garrus moved his body out of the small opening and leaned against the wall, popping the heat sink, and reaching for another.
He had expected them to get angry. He had wanted their anger. Anger made people stupid. He sighed at the thought. Not people – you – he grunted an affirmation to his own thoughts. He was stupid. Stupid enough to get him trapped in a corner. This was a corner. Sure, there was a back door – Garrus always gave himself an out – but the backdoor had only three routes. One to vorcha territory, one to Omega's trash shoots that dumped out into space (he'd rather not experience that, sorry Shepard) and the last straight into the bowls of the Apartment Slums with the plague.
That was probably the route he would end up taking if worst came to worst.
He should take it now.
The three mercenary groups had fucking teamed up. Teamed up! Who would have thought they had the brain power to do something like that? Garrus had been a fool; he knew that now. Going after Garm again, the krogan was his nemesis. He had somehow managed to rally his pack efficiently enough to cut Garrus' escape and herded him, as much as he hated to admit that he had been herded, to this very fucking room.
His only saving grace, was that bridge. And the hope that the backdoor held. It had been so far – he had learned a thing or two from Tali and Vortash after all in the hacking department. He smirked to himself a little cockily.
With a slow stroke of his M-98, he brought her back up to his shoulder and tumbled quickly under the window he had just been at – making his way to another smaller window and took position. Like a delicate swipe like that of a paintbrush, he moved his scope's focus along the length of the bridge, glad that there seemed to be a bit of a lull of people trying to come his way. It wouldn't stay like this for long.
They were waiting for reinforcements. It seemed that there was no shortage of available hired hands on this blasted asteroid and he knew that the bounty on his head was drool worthy. It had been for a few months now. His whole crew has a bounty…. he physically winced at the though. His whole crew had a bounty. Mandibles lax as his mouth opens and closes tightly as if he was tasting the disgust in the truth of that thought. Squeeze. He snarled as his bullet landed in the forehead of a recruit who was peaking out over the barricade.
"Be still," he heard beside him, "You will get careless."
"Yeah yeah," he sighed and angled himself far enough to the side of the window that he was completely hidden. He spared a glance sideways to see the owner of the voice and smiled gently at Monteague. He reached out and after a blink the drell was gone. That's probably not a good sign. Imagining your dead…what were you, Teag?
He sighed and braced his rifle on his hand that rested on the ledge, hugging the scope with his eye before sweeping a curious glance along the bridge. It had been a little less than forty-eight hours that he had been perched here. Not so bad. During his service he and his platoon had been trapped like this for a week. Of course, they had each other and a shit ton more supplies. Garrus pointedly ignored the fact that he had had to abandon his skid bag as he had been chased through the wards. It would have been convenient to have it but can't change the fact that he didn't. Squeeze.
Nothing quite as beautiful as the slight whisper of smoke from his rifle as it took out another foe.
He had done this. He knew, considering his actions over the last two months since…that day.
Garrus had recovered in the clinic, some back room that the doctor had put him in. Not that he had any injuries, not physically anyway. The salarian had kept him practically as a prisoner, mentioning something about mental stress and processing and it had taken a good week for Garrus to finally understand that he had been a little – for lack of a better word – crazy. He nearly killed anyone that entered the room. Almost took out the man's assistant, whatever the hell his name was, but the doctor was strong. He had him spun around face first into a wall with one arm so twisted Garrus felt it was about to be ripped off. Clipped sentences later by the medical man and he was stuck by a syringe with some substance that put him under for three full days.
When he had come back to, he was less wild, but no less determined in his ire. His pain was quickly shifting into that safe zone that he had adopted. Anger and pain mingled in a beautifully inspired revenge angle that was no less than an absolute infantile ideal.
His only pause, thankfully, was the reality of his responsibility to his family.
Keiji had appeared, finally meeting him face to face versus on holos. His guilt for the man losing his best friend had Garrus keening to him with an apology and a dry sob. The man had hugged him and told him to knock it off and that he didn't blame him. They sat together for hours in silence just – coming to terms with the fact that it all had truly happened, and they were all absolutely gone.
It was with his help that he was able to arrange funerals for all of them. The majority of them were laid to rest on Omega. Bray had given them access to a part of the asteroid Garrus had never seen. It was quiet and clean and when he had asked the bartarian about it the only answer was a simple: some secrets are good.
The bartarian also told him to thank Aria T'Loak.
Ripper, Sensat, Melenis, Weaver, Meirin and Butler were laid to rest in that peaceful dome. He had left their grave's unmarked because he didn't want anyone to ever disturb them. There were plenty of those graves in that place. He did, however, make sure that they were all close enough that they rested together. Ripper and Sensat were damn near sharing a grave as were Weaver and Meirin – that's how close they were buried. Butler had the only identifying marker and it was a simple rock placed at the head of the grave.
Telling Nalah had been one of the hardest things he had ever had to do.
Garrus swallowed thickly recounting that conversation and with great effort he pushed the memory away. He wasn't ready to relive that.
Erash had been sent to Sur'kesh, no matter what he had done with his life he had been an honorable STG agent and deserved to be given his respects. He had burned Vortash. As was custom and he had stood beside the pit until the fire died out.
Monteague was taken to Kahje. That had been all Keiji Okuda's doing. He wanted to ask how he managed it because the drell had been banished. He never did ask though, he assumed it had a lot to do with money or favors or contracts – whatever the case – sending his …lover…into the oceans of his home planet was beyond any kind of description he had to give. The utter beauty of watching those creatures embrace his body, their songs, the pain and acceptance and then peace of the dance in their ritual. It had moved him. Somewhere deep down inside the pit of his despair, a blanket of comfort rested. Monteague was at peace. He was home.
Garrus had stood on that shore for almost twelve hours before Keiji had collected him.
As much as they were granted to bring the drell home, they weren't exactly welcomed to stay planet side.
He felt a hard force slam into his chest, and he opened his eyes and looked down to see a hand, with a jolt he fell to the left just as a large round hit the wall behind him. Wide eyes spun to towards the owner of the hand, and took in Ripper, "Pay attention, Bossman." With a jut of his head behind him, Garrus looked to see a fucking fighter in the window.
"Fuck," he grunted and jumped, curling downward, and taking cover behind a …couch? Well, that's just great.
The spray of bullets hit all around him, he growled in his throat and waited for an opening. He was no match for a fucking fighter! He didn't have any heavy weaponry. And as good as he was with his sniper rifle there wasn't exactly any place, he could aim that to take down a gunship. Maybe it really was time to get to the tunnels.
Garrus eyed the room's exit. Fuck. At least it took a piece of military grade firepower to take him out. That's got to count for something, right? He closed his eyes. This was probably the end. With a grunt he pulled up his omnitool and typed out the call. He needed to make sure. Everything else had been done by him. Garrus needed to make sure that everything had been finished before, he flinched as another wave of bullets took ahold of the air around him.
["Garrus?"] a female voice tried to cut into the loudness of the room. ["Garrus what in the hell is that?"]
"Hey Sol," he brought the small holo up and took in his sister's panicked expression. "Don't have a lot of time to explain, did Dad take care of it?"
["Time to explain!"] she shrieked at him, and he knew she was realizing that the sound was gunfire. ["Are you getting shot at?"]
"Answer the damned question, please, Solana, please," he implored as he shifted further down into his cover. "Did he bury him in the tombs?"
For a moment he thought he lost connection. Her holo was still, her face unmoving, panic seized him briefly because he had to know. He had to. After an eternity she said softly, ["Dad and I housed him in the family crypt, Gar, he's at rest."]
A painful keel of emotion ripped from him at the words, and he replied with a wobbly, "Thank you, thank dad for me."
["Thank him yourself!"] She snapped, ["You better not die, I will murder you."]
He laughed thickly and shook his head, "I wish you could have met Krul - he was a good kid. I'll try not to die, but just …I'll try, okay?"
["Come home, big brother…"] she told him softly, a plea, ["Remember what dad always said?"]
"If there's just one bullet in the chamber…"
["Then there's still a fight."]
He gave her a small smile, "I hate you."
["Yeah? I hate you too."] And then she hung up.
Leave it to Solana to be the one to end the last call of a dying man. He rolled his eyes.
Sending Krul to Palaven had been a bold move, one that he felt deep in his core had been the right one. Reaching out to Castis Vakarian to tell him that he was sending him had been a conversation for the ages. In the end, the patriarch of the Vakarian clan had agreed to fulfill his wishes. Garrus never knew his father to be a liar, but the request was not a small one. No one but family was allowed to be buried in family tombs. They needed to be blood or bonded and asking him to place Grundan Krul within the family plot went against a lot of rules and traditions. But that was where the boy belonged.
He felt a hard slap to the back of the head, and he blinked, "The fuck."
"Use your head, G," he heard the deep voice beside him, but saw no one. When he looked back down to his lap his omnitool seemed to glow and he remembered! Hell yes! He remembered! He grinned wildly and brought up the program wincing at the realization that using this upgraded overload would short circuit his omnitool and he would have to go without it from here on out. Oh well.
Garrus tumbled out of cover, crawling quickly towards the ship that was now turning to aim at him again. He scrambled closer and closer, avoiding the spray of too-fucking-big ammunition and silently thanking whatever deity that wanted to listen to him that the pilot hadn't used any rockets. That would have been a monumental problem.
When he was close enough, he brought his hand up, aimed and typed in the short four button sequence. A loud snap and electric buzz followed before he looked up and saw the bright fireworks of his attack hitting the gunship. Bright lightening flickered and sparked its way through the metal and with a visual explosion followed by a loud wail of failing electronics, the gunship wobbled once, spun at an odd angle and shifted heavily to the right. All at once it was no longer a problem as dark black smoke filled the now empty space.
"Yes!" he half cried, and half laughed, looking over his shoulder to look at Vortash, when he found the room empty, he sighed to himself and with a small frown as he moved back towards his weapon.
Seventy-two hours in, Garrus' arms were shaking. He had to adjusts his shots accordingly which meant the mercenaries coming across the bridge had to get closer. This went against everything in him, it was a dangerous compensation. A needed one.
His vision was becoming cloudy, every few moments he had to shake his head and blink his eyes a few times to get it to clear. His knees were bruised, his back was seizing and his gut was telling him if he didn't get something to eat soon – it was going to start eating him.
That familiar feeling had left him cold.
The memory of the last time this happened kept trying to take ahold of him, he fought it down with small affirmations that he was not on Alchera. He was not trapped in a pod. Albeit, he was trapped. The one assurance he had formed that seemed to work through his panic was the all-too-obvious reality that hunger and starvation would not be what killed him here.
A bullet would kill him. Or an omni-blade. A grenade?
He wouldn't live long enough to starve. Oddly enough – that worked.
Garrus had moved to a window he had not used in a while, it was one of the bigger ones and he tried to avoid it as much as possible, but truthfully – he was getting tired. Maybe if one of them was a good shot he could just…sleep. Fuck. Where did they get these guns for hires? Seriously?
"You'd think one of them could aim and shoot accurate enough to at least hit me," he said conversationally. "Its all too pathetic, they should be embarrassed."
He laughed and the echoes of another's laugh followed. Garrus had long since stopped looking behind him or around him. His crew were ghosts and they were here because he was one foot in the grave. It was evident and he found comfort in the fact that they had come to help. Though why they kept helping him stay alive – was starting to get annoying.
Garrus was a fighter though. He did not give up and he definitely wouldn't surrender. He sure as hell wouldn't make it easy for the three factions of mercenaries that had deemed it their sole responsibility to put down Archangel.
A bullet whizzed by his head and he glared down towards the entrance of the bridge. That was the closest shot yet. He squinted, bringing up his rifle to rest easy on the ledge he peaked through the scope. Solus? Garrus sat up straight and looked past his gun to take in the doctor. What the fuck? He looked through his scope again.
Solus was trying to collect the Archangel bounty? That…that didn't make sense. The man had fixed up and healed his crew a hundred times, himself included. What the hell was he doing here? Garrus watched him through his scope, it took him a little longer than it should have to realize that the salarian was not alone. He shifted his crosshairs over the two forms that were with him. A woman was clad in a suit so tight it looked like she was wearing nothing at all. A large black belt sat on her hips, too big of a pistol holster empty as she was carrying it in her hands. He watched as she aimed at the back of another merc's head and shot. A flare of blue from her other hand sent out a precision blast of biotics towards another. She was all straight lines and perfect curves – in human standards – she looked like a fucking doll.
Still. She was killing the mercenaries. As was Solus.
As was…
His body froze.
His mind went blank.
Every possible nerve ending in his entire frame seemed to faulter and pause. His breathing, his heart, his blood –
"Snap out of it," he heard Krul's voice, "Duck."
He did so automatically. Garrus hadn't heard Krul yet. Desperately he tore his eye from his scope and looked around the room. He was alone. Fuck. Of course he was. He moved then, taking aim and focusing in on the woman in the center of the trio.
Red hair, green eyes, face contorted in a familiar concentration with red brows pinched and lips flat. Her pale skin was covered in red wounds. Vibrant and angry as if they were glowing. He glared at her through the scope, his thumb clicking on the button to toggle concussion rounds. Squeeze.
His bullet hit her shoulder and she immediately glared in his direction, looking directly into his scope. She mouthed something that looked like, 'Asshole' but he wasn't a lip reader. Garrus was glad though. He was glad because it hit her. It hit her and she responded and when she turned her attention back towards Solus and the doll, he realized that he had to help them.
Another flick of his thumb and he was back in business. Squeeze. Shifting his stance, he swept his rifle a few inches to take aim again. It took a few moments of this. Watching the bridge before he could feel the presence of the three in the room with him. It made the entire room feel so much smaller. He marveled at that.
"Archangel?" Her voice. Spirits. It was her voice.
He raised a hand, silencing her because if she kept talking, he would miss this shot. His hands were already shaking. Patiently he waited for the bare head of the merc to peak out from behind the column and squeeze. Looking up towards the bridge and the entrance he noted that it was empty for now. Most likely the teams behind the barricade were in disarray since the trio had turned on them and killed their team too. They were regrouping.
Garrus used his rifle to stand, his body protesting as he turned towards them and eyed them each wearily. He needed to sit. Garrus advanced towards them carefully, the two women still had their guns primed in their hands, but Solus was grinning a half-smirk at him. He reached up and slowly removed his helmet, sitting down on the back of one of the chairs that still remained. "Shepard," he heard his dry voice cut – "I thought you were dead."
"Garrus," her voice – her voice – saying his name – he felt his insides shiver and the world tried to spin. He closed his eyes and tucked his chin down to keep it from doing so. "What are you doing here?" She asked, stepping towards him with one arm up. He flinched back slightly, and she froze in her approach. Confusion was written on her features by his reaction, he looked past her to see Krul leaning against the wall. He was smirking and with a nod he motioned towards the woman between them.
"Good to see you too," Garrus drawled with a small smile, his attention staying on Krul's gaze. It was clear that the young turian was telling him to trust this. To trust her. How? She was dead. He had seen the wreckage. But…he reached out and grabbed the small hand that was slowly dropping from midair.
The moment her hand was in his, Krul smiled widely at him and dipped his head in a silent goodbye. Garrus watched the kid disappear before he slowly brought his gaze to fall into the green eyes before him, "You look like shit."
She laughed, her hand clasping his tightly, "I know."
The turian pulled her roughly into him. Her body came easy at his forcefulness, when she braced herself against his body – one hand on his shoulder the other on his chest, he leaned forward and buried his face against her neck.
"Commander!" the doll woman's voice cut in and he heard her heels approach before suddenly stopping.
Solus' voice piped in, "Scent confirmation. No danger. Calm down."
Garrus inhaled her deeply. Her body was tense, unsure and he couldn't fault her for that. He growled low in his throat at the familiar scent tried to raise but it was altered. It reminded him of their time in the hospital when she had drugs in her system and metal in her arm. His tongue came out then, travelling from the bottom most exposed part of her neck up to her ear, the tip curling behind it and he used taste and smell to decide. She shuddered slightly at the feeling of his tongue and when he brought his head up from being pressed there he spoke against the shell of her ear – like a whispered question, "Shepard?"
"Its really me," she whispered back, her body relaxing against his as her forehead came down to rest on the wide lip of his armor. "Its really you?"
"Yeah," he told her and released her armor to wrap one arm around her tightly. "It is."
"Commander," the woman spoke again earning a glare from both Solus and Garrus, "We have a lot of people trying to kill Archangel and they won't wait for this reunion to be over before they shoot at us."
Shepard sighed and pushed herself off of Garrus, casting a withered look at the woman, "You're right, Miranda, go watch the stairs."
The brunette nodded once and left the room to do so. At least she listened.
"What's the plan?" He asked her, forcing himself off the chair and moving to stand beside her as they both looked towards the bridge.
The plan was as simple as it was complicated. It involved Shepard helping him take out the first wave of infiltrators. The Eclipse mercenaries were easily taken down. Especially when her little trick of arming their YMIR mechanical juggernaut to turn fire on the owner instead. He watched with quiet amusement as it did a fine job of taking out most of the Eclipse. The three only had to take true firing at the leader Jaroth. He was no match for Solus though, dying in a loud blast of flaming limbs. Garrus put a round in his head to shut him up.
When the Blood Pack nearly came in the back door, Garrus had actually been shocked. Shepard and Miranda had left to take care of most of them as Solus and himself kept the slow creep of vorcha and varren at bay. It wasn't the hardest work, but he was tired. Beyond tired. He leaned heavily against the low wall where he was perched and aiming.
Garm's arrival actually caused him to panic. He had reached out to Shepard letting her know that he was about to be pinned down and even though Solus was there, he really didn't think he had the fight in him to take on the krogan. When Garm made it into the room with the two, he dodged him as best he could as Solus fired at him. Garrus shifted just out of the way of the krogan, bringing the butt of his sniper rifle down to connect with the beast's cheek. It did nothing but piss him off. With a snarl, Garm grabbed him and held him up off the ground. Before he could do anything, however, both himself and Garm were wrapped in biotic blue. Garm snarled and released him. Garrus crumbled but was pulled towards Shepard and then he felt himself being placed down before she joined the fight against the krogan.
Garm didn't stand a chance.
Thank the spirits.
Shepard came to him and placed a hand on his arm, "You okay, Garrus?"
"Just ready to end this," he would tell her. "All that's left is Tarak."
"The Blue Suns," she nodded, "Think we can make a push for it?"
He honestly didn't know. He wasn't going to be able to handle a close combat fight. His stand off with Garm had proven that. He told her just that and she nodded.
"So we wait it out," she eyed him sideways, "How did you manage to piss off everyone on Omega?"
He let a weak chuckle out, "It wasn't easy…"
"Mhm," she grinned at him, but they were interrupted when Solus barked behind them about varren and some vorcha left over. Shepard rolled her eyes and made her way out of the room to go help out.
Garrus stepped towards the door to watch her, his rifle in relaxed prime at his hips. Mentally he felt like he was in a fog. Everything around him was happening too quickly. Too slowly. Too wild. It was as if he were watching from the outside in. Shepard was back? He still couldn't wrap his mind around it. She really was her – she smelt like her. He would have to apologize later for licking her. Though she didn't seem to mind. Interesting little tidbit of information that was. He frowned at the thought. What use was that information?
His eyes lingered on her fighting down below, his lapse in awareness of the room around him did him no favors when the familiar sound of a gunship vibrated through the room. He tensed just as the guttural snarl of his name came through the speakers of the ship, "Archangel!"
Garrus spun towards the ship, rifle coming up with him as if he were going to be able to do something with it, but the bullets hit him quicker than his feet could come to stance. He grimaced against the impacts and threw his body sideways towards cover. Shit cover it was.
"Move!" He heard Monteague order him and hands pulling him up to a half stand, half crawl before shoving him away from his cover. The gunship fired one rocket that destroyed the cover where he was, he looked up just in time to see the second rocket whiz directly at him. He felt a cool hand against his cheek before his head spun and he recoiled from the approaching missile.
Garrus felt the impact, but his body landing on the ground hurt more. It was twisted and angled. His head throbbed in pain as the vibrations in the room screamed against his ears. It was both quiet and loud and he choked out and gasped for a moment before his vision dulled and he fell into a dark hum of something akin to unconsciousness.
He felt like he was there for a long time. It was not exactly peaceful. He was still in pain, but it was duller – far away. Spirits he was tired.
"It is not your time," he heard Butler's voice. He couldn't see him. He couldn't see anything. Why? Butler laughed and he felt his hand on his shoulder, "I can't tell you that, you know its the truth though."
"You have to wake up, Shepard is waiting," Monteague purred, and he felt a press against his forehead. "Wake up, Garrus." No. "Garrus!"
No!
"Garrus!" Her voice took place of Monteague's and his eyes snapped open. He inhaled deep and almost choked. "Oh God, please, please hold on! Joker…Joker we need an evac!"
"We need to hurry," Miranda said to Shepard. "He doesn't look good."
"Move," Solus clipped at them and swatted their hands away. The pressure on his forehead leaving him as Shepard scooted backwards. "Archangel," Solus' dark eye came into view, "Breathe through nose. Not mouth. Pain is good. Focus on that. No sleeping."
He wanted to point out to the killer doctor that he wasn't about to go to sleep. He was, however, about to pass out. He never was one for following directions anyway.
A/N
So writing Garrus hallucinating was hard and I hope it flows well enough. If for whatever reason you are confused - he is exhausted and the times where he sees/hears his dead crew is actually his survival instincts taking over. But you know - maybe they are there too. He is dancing on the great divide in this scene so :)
Believe what you will.
I just hope my writing was fluid enough to convey what I meant to.
Also - take it easy yall! You are all amazing.
Feel free to comment *cough* Its nice to read them.
-CM
